The procedures for purchasing cable time for advertising messages and the related production and verification process for these purchases is currently adequate for national network advertisers. However, the procedures for the purchase of spot time on individual cable systems is cumbersome, inefficient and, in instances, nonexistent. A significant spot advertising purchase on cable involves dealing with numerous cable system operators. To purchase a spot program on cable that would reach a majority of subscribers in the top 30 markets in the United States would require an advertising agency to deal with approximately 500 individual cable systems--some of which do not now have ad insertion equipment, or, in instances where they do, are able to insert ads on only a limited number of channels.
While certain cable systems are linked by cable interconnects that make the process more efficient, all of these interconnects cover only a limited region and few of them have demonstrated effective delivery capabilities. Advertising agencies making a significant spot buy on cable television today must deal with the mechanics of scheduling ads on multiple systems and of physically delivering multiple commercial ad tapes to systems and interconnects located in remote locations throughout the country.
Another significant problem that advertisers and their agency representatives currently confront with spot advertising on cable is that the follow-up verification and accounting systems of cable operators and inter-connects are uniformly unacceptable. Frequently agencies are unable to confirm that commercial messages ran at a particular time on a particular channel on a particular system. The receipt of separate invoices from numerous cable operators and inter-connects is another negative frequently cited by advertising agencies.
It is known in the prior are to utilize ad insertion equipment at cable television system headends utilizing video tape storage media and computer control. Such systems provide adequate video quality, but are not random accessed video storage media. Thus, in one such prior art system, a large plurality of video tape drives are used and periodically loaded with adequate tapes for a given period of time. In another prior art system, advertisements are downloaded to the headends of more than one cable system in a given region, but the advertisements are downloaded serially and identically at each cable television system headend, making it difficult to custom tailor advertising needs of each cable television system.